Introduction: Brain and language
Cortex: the surface of the brain, often called gray matter, consisting of billions of neurons. It is the decision-making organ of the body.
Cerebral hemispheres: the brain is composed of cerebral hemisphere, one on the right and one on the left, joined by the corpus callosum. Corpus callosum: a network of more than 200 million fibers which permits the left and right hemisphere to communicate.
1. Aphasia: is the neurological term for any language disorder that results from brain damage caused by disease or trauma （失语症）
Broca’s aphasia:labored speech, producing agrammatic sentences, absence of functional words, inflection omission, having difficulty in understanding information from syntactic structures
Wernicke’s aphasia: produce fluent speech with good intonation and may largely adhere to the rules of syntax, however being semantically incoherent, having difficulty in naming objects.
2. Dyslexics: is characterized by difficulty with learning to read fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal intelligence, Word substitution, Function word omission, both the brain and language are structured in a complex, modular fashion.
论证：The language faculty is an autonomous, genetically determined module of the brain.Aphasia with different kinds of linguistic impairment supports the hypothesis that the mental grammar, like the brain itself, is
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not an undifferentiated system, but rather consists of distinct components or modules with different functions.
3. Split brain shows that the two hemispheres appear to be independent, and messages sent to the brain result in different responses, depending on which side receives the message.
? Information of language can not be transferred to right hemisphere ? Different hemisphere has different jobs ? Have different visual fields 4. SLI: specific language impairment
? Only linguistic ability is affected, and often only specific aspects of grammar are impaired
? the different components of language (phonology, syntax, lexicon) can be selectively impaired or spared
5. Savant on language: linguistic ability derives from general intelligence because these two individuals (and others like them) developed language despite other pervasive intellectual deficits.
6. The critical-age hypothesis assumes that language is biologically based and that the ability to learn a native language develops within a fixed period, from birth to middle childhood. During this critical period, language acquisition proceeds easily, swiftly, and without external intervention. After this period, the acquisition of grammar is difficult and, for most individuals, never fully achieved.
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Morphology: the words of language
1. Morpheme：is the linguistic term for the most elemental unit of grammatical form.
2. linguistic sign: A morpheme—the minimal linguistic unit—is thus an arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning (or grammatical function) that cannot be further analyzed.
3. Root:Morphologically complex words consist of a morpheme root and one or more affixes. A root may or may not stand alone as a word. The root constitutes the core of the word and carries the major components of its meaning.
4. Stem:When a root morpheme is combined with an affix, it forms a stem.
5. Base:Linguists sometimes use the word base to mean any root or stem to which an affix is attached. Base can be a root or stem. Ⅰ.Classification of Morphemes：Free vs. bound morphemes. Free morphemes: may constitute words by themselves. Free morpheme can stand alone as a word.
bound morphemes are other morphemes like –ness, -ly, pre- are never words by themselves but are always parts of words. Bound morpheme must be attached to a base morpheme. bound morpheme: affix, bound root.
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Affix:Prefix, Suffix, Infix, Circumfix, Derivational affixes.
Infixes：morphemes that are inserted into other morphemes. -um-in Bontonc, kilad,kumilad as \
Circumfixes: morphemes that are attached to a base morpheme both initially and finally.. In Chickasaw, the negative is formed with both a prefix ik- and the suffix -o.ik+o in Chickasaw, palli is \Ⅱ.Rules of Word Formation；Derivation， Inflection， compound 1.Derivation: When certain bound morphemes are added to a base, a new word with a new meaning is derived.The form that results from the addition of a derivational morpheme is called a derived word.The derived word may also be of a different grammatical class than the original word.Sometimes it changes its pronunciation.e.g.-ish,-er,-ly,-ship,re-,un-. 2. Inflection: bound morphemes which have a strictly grammatical function, mark properties such as tense, number, person.inflections never change the grammatical category of the stems. E.g. -s,- ed, -ing, -en, -s,- 's, -er, -est. base+affix e.g.wait-waits
Internal change: ablaut(元音交替） and umlaut(元音变音) in English. e.g.Sing~sang~sung; foot~feet Suppetion
Reduplication(红红火火) Tone placement
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3. compound words :Two or more words may be joined to form new, such as steamboat, airplane,redhead, blackboard, redneck, turncoat, highbrow.
Head: the morpheme that determines the category of entire word. In English, the rightmost word in a compound is the head of the compound. 4. Back formation: a process that creates a new word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word. resurrection→ resurrect donation → donate peddler →peddle editor → edit
5. Cliticization: one word is attached to the other for phonological reasons. E.g. Jean t’aime. (French) Jean likes you. th’ angel (old English) the angel
6. Conversion/ Zero Derivation implant, import, record, present, contest
? Clipping: a polysyllabic word is shortened by deleting one or more syllables, lab, doc, flu, zoo.
? Blends: words are created from non-morphemic parts of two words. smog: smoke fog, bit: binary digit
7. Acronyms: taking initial letters of words or phases as a word,
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